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INDEX
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Smugglers, Missionaries and the Way Things Are
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"I once knew a man," I said, thinking back. Mind you, this man made quite an impression on me. And that was not because he used to be the biggest diamond smuggler in these parts. Nor was it because he was the first facetor I ever met. It wasn't even
because he taught me faceting eventually, among a few other things. It wasn't that at all.
Even today, when I clean between my teeth with the back-end of a matchstick, slowly, and I think of Destiny, I think of him. It is a peculiar thing, sitting like this with the African sun sinking away. Thinking of Destiny and Africa, I mean. It is the
kind of thing a man Needs matches for. Quite a few, if you are really after truth.
It is a lucky thing that I saw him in only his short pants, early on in our relationship. It placed things in perspective. After that, having myself travelled a few African miles, I paid the due attention when he explained things like fastening a fishing
line to the Tobacco Pouch you put the goods in. I did that because this man had the most scars that I have ever seen in my life. And I have seen a few here and there.
Now, there is a certain Apocryphal element in African Cartography, as everyone knows. And everyone knows that the best map to carry around is the kind that the Government cannot fold open when you suddenly have to, say, disappear over the horizon. That is
because you carry Your map in your head, disappearing over the Horizon. And while the Government and the Government's people normally do not bother too much with maps, it being Africa and all, they sometimes really want to know what lies over the Horizon.
Because they Really want to know what you are disappearing over the horizon With.
But When a man stands in his short pants, and you suddenly realise that you will need a piece of string a few meters long to correctly measure the length of all his scars, you frown and start cleaning your teeth if you are in Africa. Slowly, as I said.
Later on, you learn which half was the Mashona Terr's in the Rhodesian Bush war, and which explosion did what. What happened in which mine when. Africa is like that, moving a man to clean his teeth in the face of such luck. Or Destiny.
And as the sun disappears over the horizon, my thoughts move back to the time, like Destiny, that I saw my first Gemstones in Africa. It was after an Anti-Aids campaign, in Mozambique, in Zambezia. I helped move a truck from Maputo to the North of the
Country, carrying building suplies. Only took a week, with the Renamo trenches and all. It was that time towards the end of a Civil war that you can travel again. At times. See places you couldn't get to for twenty years. But every meter of the way you
feel the eyes watching you. Especially North of Dondo and the Zambezi. Because then you are entering Renamo's heartland. The obstacles and houses that used to be built on the Tarmac road had just been removed. That is the nice thing of Renamo territory --
the roads are still so good. Up North I mean. Because No one could use them the last 20 Years, or get to them. Because down South all roads had been destroyed or taken in by the Bush. It is just muddy tracks with dead vehicles and Russian armor eveywhere.
And landmines yes. With the maps prophesying about the past; what used to be where, somewhere in the past. Not that you really care, mapping in your head like that.
So I looked at the bare breasted women, at the children's astonishment at seeing a white men, and I didn't look at the bush. Could feel the men's eyes on me all the time. So you are real careful where you look and step, with the village lain landmines I
mean. There used to be a time for White explorers in Africa. But now it is better to walk only where a local Black is walking, track or no track. And never in front. Bodily functions makes you remember dead people you know.
It makes you think of life, feeling death brush your cheek like that, whispering names in your ear. Makarov Pistol cost $2.20 It was better the deeper you go. You still feel the eyes from veterans of a Thousand Ambushes on you, but by then people were
looking at you directly, the women as well. Curiosity. I just slid my tongue slowly over my teeth and kept radiating the experience and weariness of a Thousand Miles through mud and rivers and death. You look experienced, ignore them just enough, curse at
the rain and the mud and watch the youth at the corner of your peripheral vision's line of fire. Dead people you know.
And suddenly everyone realises that this one will be passing through, the tension lessens and the men appear. Someone comes up selling Casava -- Mandioca in Portuguese. Buy, leave the change, look around looking everyone in the eye with that one glance
jumping in the truck. And they keep looking after the truck a long time after we ducked over the Horizon. Bloody hell.
So I had helped build a bit of this East German Missionary-Doctor's house. That was what the building supplies were for. Place called Ile, north of Mocuba. Very very beautiful, friendly people. And one day I sit in the shade of this Huge huge Dolomite
koppie towering above us. Enjoying the scenery of the most beautiful place I know. Thinking about my future, and Destiny, the Medical Store I wanted to built. But mostly just thinking and sucking on life.
And up comes this fellow African, with Gemstones in his hand. My Portuguese being what it is, and Africa being Africa, we had an amicable conversation nevertheless. Didn't understand more than 20 Words of each other. But both of us had the attitude of
Africa. It was in the way we frowned, smiled, used our hands and nod our heads. We had an honourable understanding which beats from the heart. Of life and death, and the way things are.
So being African, I did not buy his Gemstones because I did not know Gemstones then. But I did know Africa and the African way of selling things that are not really what they are given out to be. And understanding just that peculiar situation, he smiled
in an understanding sort of way, and nodded his head. He himself had to pay many times for things that he does not know about or really care for. And what were not really what they were given out to be.
Like liberation, communism and recently democracy. And then I looked into his eyes, at the gemstones in his hand and started thinking about Destiny again.
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Copyright, 1997 by Justice Malanot
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